The Way She Moves

Very nice compliments last night from H, our esteemed director. I’ve never been able to take a compliment very well and he was almost gushy with me last night. I was all blush and giggle. He likes the way I move and said that even though I basically sit throughout the entire play that I make even that interesting. It’s my neck. And the way I hold my head. All I can say is Thank You H.

Last night we did a partial costume run. And I must say I was quite happy with my new dress. I think it’s sexy, yet appropriate. The last one I think looked like I was going to cocktail party, not standing trial for murder. Tonight is full costume and picture night. I always hate this rehearsal at PRP because the photographer, who is fabulous I have to say, gets right on the stage and right up in your face while you are rehearsing. It is incredibly difficult to ignore a man who is inches from you with a camera.

Oh, that reminds me, pics from my last production New Voices ’07 are up on the website here. I’m the one in the flowered dress and the superman T-shirt.

Rehearsals have been tough. From my last two outbursts you can probably tell that we are having some trouble with cast members learning their lines. Now it’s just one. And it’s killing us. It slows the pace and breaks all the tension that being built up. One week until we open. One.

But besides the complaints, I must say there are some awfully nice bright spots in the cast. KF, who plays Mrs. John Joseph Hutchins, is very fun and watchable. B, playing the clueless cop, is so very funny. KP as the disapproving sveedish housekeeper is so shocked, SHOCKED, by the sinning. And the dance hall girl, played by E, is spot on. The man who plays my lawyer is just so persuasive. I’m going to win every night! I’m aware that H hopes that’s not true but until L the DA learns his lines I don’t think he’s going to be able to convince the jury that I committed the crimes I admit to on the stand much less the murder I’m on trial for.

Oh For the Love of the FSM

Learn your damned lines L!

Minnie Mouse on the Stand

As if I haven't suffered enough with the whole surgery at the beginning of rehearsals thing. Now, now I have the flu. Because of the set up of the play I was able to run my stuff three times last night and still make it home before 8 so it wasn't too bad. My cast mates mocked me quite a bit though. I play this really controlled and controlling woman and I do it with a very cold low tone of voice. But my flu made that impossible. Instead they said I sounded like Minnie Mouse. So just picture Minnie saying, "You don't find men like Bjorn Faulkner cringing before a bankruptcy commission and you don't find them locked in jail." and you get kind of an idea of how my rehearsal went last night. I don't think I'll be able to make it at all tonight. My face is so filled with stuff and I feel like I am being pushed into the ground. By 7 all I'll want is a Nyquil cocktail and unconsciousness.

What was that?

Wow. Okay. What the hell just happened? I cannot remember being so ridiculously busy in ages.

This first day of filming was kind of a slog. I arrived at 10:15 am ready to go but we didn’t actually start filming until 12:10. Out of 36 shots we did 6 ending at 2:30. The whole process if pretty exhausting. It’s repetitive and tedious. We are also filming in a cold space with a concrete floor, so standing continuously begins to get to my back. I also began to get pretty darned tired so I had a lot of trouble with scene 7 and it ended up not getting shot.

The auditorium scenes with the extras were a lot easier. It went faster. I had far fewer shots and was in and out in about an hour. Tonight we should be finishing the scenes in the cold concrete location. I’ll probably be there all night. Yippee.

I also had three rehearsals for J16. We did Act III on Friday. It went alright. I mostly knew my lines. Although not as strongly I would have liked. But we went through it twice and it was okay. Sunday we did I single full run. We were missing some actors but that was okay. Monday we had a full run and that was hellish. Everyone was there and we staged the end of Act III and curtain call. When you try to jam everyone on stage I’m completely amazed by how many we really are. I’m still having a little trouble with a couple of the Act III lines. But I must say I am incredibly irritated with some of the actors who only have ten or so lines and are still calling line. I have pages and pages and some of them are paragraphs and they have ½ a page and can’t remember? What the hell? It was way too much for me to be able to recount what happened in great detail. It seems to just blur into one big clusterfuck of a rehearsal.

I decided I’m going to take the part of Sammii (yes, it has two is) in Proposals at PRP. The director told me that P, who I worked with in Reckless, is going to play the character opposite me so I couldn’t say no. I’m actually really looking forward to it now that I read it. So I’ll have the month of March off and then back onto the stage. The part is much smaller than my current one so I’ll have more time off than I currently do.

Off Book, Nerves, and the Future.

Last night was my first off book rehearsal for J16. Overall, a pretty good rehearsal. I really like the actor who is playing my attorney. And with such a large cast there are a number off actors whom I’ve never spoken a word to yet so it’s cool that I have someone I’m so comfortable with in the cast. It was overall a pretty uneventful rehearsal. With the set up of the show only the two lawyers really have any blocking. At that’s even pretty minimal so it does make for much easier rehearsals.

There was one moment that was pretty funny last night and I caused it. At the very end of the act I have a confrontation with the widow of the man I’m accused of murdering. It’s a very angry exchange and I have to get pretty worked up to go after her during her testimony. So I sit there and get my self so worked up that I hear ringing in my ears and I can see a little halo of yellow light on the outside of my vision. I’m pissed. So I stand and begin delivery my lines and the exchange is on and then I yell, “Mrs. Faulkner!” “What is it?” She responds. And suddenly the words were just gone. There was nothing but this extreme spitting anger, but no words, and nothing rational left in me to call for lines so all that comes out of my mouth is “I don’t know!” And the room totally broke up. I almost burst into tears. Not out of embarrassment but because I had all of this anger and resentment and there was just no way to funnel it. But after a deep breath I just started laughing so hard. We ran I just that section again and I was fine but I couldn’t get that ear ringingly irate again without the build up so I’m afraid the scene wasn’t as good. But I did get all my lines out. Next run of that scene Sunday. I only have six bloody lines in that exchange so I hopefully will not screw it up again.

So tonight I have Act II off book. I have a huge emotional break at the end of the act that comes without the emotional prep that I’ve had in the past for that sort of thing so we’ll see how that goes. And tomorrow I have my first shooting day for CC. I’m very excited and nervous about that. I also have to be off book for Act III tomorrow and I am definitely not feeling quite as secure about it as the other two acts. But I should have two hours between the shoot and the rehearsal so I should be able to get it down. It’s only about eight pages. And I’m pretty comfortable with this last four.

Last night I was invited to read the script for newer Neil Simon play called Proposals. I don’t know the show but I really like PRP so I’d be excited to do yet another show there. My only hang up is that both LTM and Suffield Players are doing Blithe Spirit in the spring and I’ve always wanted to play the dead wife part. But do I take a part I know I can have with a theater company that I really enjoy working with or do I take my chances and audition for a part in a play I really like but may not get cast in and then have nothing lined up for the spring? It’s a really really hard choice for me. But reading the show won’t hurt and maybe I’ll just love the part. And maybe I can not commit until after I audition for Blithe Spirit and can keep it as a back up. I hate to do that though. Particularly because I am so new to PRP and don’t want to box myself out before I’m really in. It is nice to go from no choices and never getting cast to too many choices I must say. My husband always wants to know why I do show on top of show on top of show and the answer is that you just never know when it will dry up. When someone will be the newer better flavor. Plus I’m getting near the end of ingénue stage and will have to move into more mature women roles which are harder to find. It sucks to be getting “old” in my mid 30s.

Lotsa Stuff Going On

On January 4^th I had surgery. I started to know I needed surgery around Christmas but kept thinking maybe I could put it off a few months. On the Friday before New Year’s I knew that was a ridiculous assumption and by the Wednesday after New Year’s I was begging my doctor to do it that day. Not just the pain but because I have so much going on that it was way better to do it earlier than try to wait and screwing up my rehearsal schedule farther into the process. So I missed the first three rehearsals for January 16^th and had to put off a meeting for The Callahan Project. But I am back on track now thank goodness.

Rehearsals have been going well for J16. We are rehearsing in the space which is both helpful and frustrating. I like the actual feel of being in the real space and I even enjoy having the set going up around me. But it’s also dirty, the stage for the last show had a beach on it that included a ridiculous amount of sand that’s in buckets everywhere and seems to be in every crevice of everything in the theater, and there are trip hazards just off the floor of the stage everywhere. I swear I’m going to be killed by the ½ inch lip they built to contain the sand from the last set. But as set build continues I’m sure that it will get neater and neater and that lip will get removed.

H is a different kind of director than I’ve worked with before. We will be running along and then all of a sudden he’ll stop and work a bit, a scene, 4 lines, a cross, for 15 minutes. And then we run along again. And you can never tell what it’s going to be. You’ll run through some pretty darned rough patches and he says nothing and then when things seem to be going along swimmingly suddenly we stop and work and work and work. It’s only been me that was being worked once so far. And believe me, I needed the work. So it is a really useful exercise. I just haven’t been able to make rhyme or reason of it yet. But overall things seem pretty good. I’m off book for Act I and II now. And I’ve been listening to my Act III lines on loop on and off since 10:30 this morning so hopefully I’ll be off book tonight. If there is rehearsal, it snowed last night and everyone seems concerned about a parking ban and with no parking comes no rehearsal. And that would suck as I have not yet been to an Act III rehearsal.

I don’t have a lot to say about the film project. I met the director once. Seems nice. I have a table read tomorrow. That’s good. I’ve never done film so I’m a little nervous about all that but I’m sure I’ll be just fine for this project and maybe I’ll learn enough to do some more. I just hope that the filmmaker, K, is a good director. I have an inherent need for a director in this early stage in my acting career so I hope his youth and the difference in our ages won’t get in the way of him being able to mold me. Not that I won’t listen because he’s young. Not what I mean at all. But that he will either be afraid to tell me or that he won’t have enough experience to know how to tell me. But table read tomorrow and time to size myself up against the other actor. So that should be really interesting anyway.